1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of systems for tracking customer activity at casinos, and in particular, to systems for tracking customers' gaming and non-gaming activity across affiliated casino properties, for use in customer recognition and marketing programs.
2. Background Art
Substantially all casinos have implemented some form of customer tracking to identify and reward their valuable customers. These tracking programs often use the betting activity of a customer as the basis for awarding the customer complementary rooms, meals, event tickets, and the like (“comps”). Typically, these tracking programs are implemented by providing each customer with a casino membership card which includes a machine readable identification number specific to the customer. Each identification number has an associated customer account that is stored in the casino's computer system and updated to reflect customer activity. Customers need only insert their cards in slot machines or card readers associated with gaming tables or give their cards to a casino employee to have their betting activity monitored and reflected in their accounts. Customer cards may also be used to track customer activity at casino venues, such as special events, showrooms, and hotels, through card readers and computer terminals manned by casino employees.
The growth of the gaming industry has created new challenges to the way in which customer tracking programs are implemented. Many states and territories have recently legalized casino gambling, and companies have built casino properties at these new gaming locations to meet the demand for gaming facilities. Despite the increased number of casino properties affiliated with a company, conventional casino management practices continue to treat these casino properties as autonomous, decentralized entities that compete with each other for valuable customers. In particular, customer tracking at each casino property is typically controlled by local management, and few if any attempts have been made to coordinate customer information across affiliated casino properties. For example, each casino has its own system that tracks betting data on the casino's customers. The property treats this betting data as confidential, in order to prevent competing casinos, including those affiliated with the property, from luring away valuable customers. Thus, customer tracking programs at affiliated properties remain fragmented, and conventional management practices provide little incentive to coordinate data accumulated by these tracking programs.
Even if a casino company was to attempt some coordination of customer tracking programs at its affiliated casinos, the systems currently in place at various casino properties are too localized to integrate easily. Casino management systems are typically custom designed for each casino property, the customer data is limited to selected customer activity at the specific casino property, and the customer data accumulated by different computer systems within the same casino is often in different, incompatible formats. Thus, while each casino has useful data for its regular customers, there is no ready means for consolidating this data or making it available conveniently for use at other casinos. In short, there are both operational and technical barriers to coordinating customer tracking programs at individual casino properties into national, company-wide tracking and marketing programs.